As the Internet grows in maturity as a medium for providing content to users, it has evolved to incorporate different methods and mechanisms that enhance the speed and efficiency of delivering user-requested content. In particular, methods and techniques exist by which servers are placed in locations that are convenient in terms of their geographic position, position in the network, or other factors related to the ease and speed of the server for delivering content to clients requesting it. In some cases content is duplicated on multiple servers located in such a fashion that each server is conveniently located for responding to requests that may be initiated from various different locations of the requesting clients. In other cases, special servers operate as so-called cache servers, that are able to store content, requested originally from another server and provide the same content in response to a later content request if the cache server is more conveniently located, and therefore able to provide the content more efficiently than the server that provided the content originally. In other situations such caching servers may be configured to store select content for which there may be a high volume of requests or for content which consumes large amounts of storage and/or transmission capacity, for example, which the cache server may be equipped to handle more effectively.
In some situations, content providers hire other companies that specialize in providing the server and/or network infrastructure needed to host the content of the content provider. In such an arrangement, the hosting companies and content providers enter into agreements in advance about the configuration and operating parameters under which the content that will be hosted by the hosting company will be served to the content-requesting public.
In order to control user access to content, it is common practice for clients to provide information along with content requests when sending requests to the servers. The servers use the information to identify users (i.e. the authentication process) and/or their right to access individual elements of requested content (i.e. the authorization process), and in turn, use the information as a basis for making decisions about whether a content request will be fulfilled or denied.
Content providers whose content will be accessed by client web browsers, use “cookies” which may contain the security and/or other information. The cookies are stored on client computers, in accordance with existing Internet protocols, as part of the process of providing requested content to the users. Servers can later read the cookies and use them for security and/or other provider-controlled decision making with respect to user content requests, etc.